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Images Of the Day:
Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
Always Remember: That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. — The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!
Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99%, Only the 1% Voted For Austerity! The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.! Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Quotesof the Day:
“My expectation and hope is that this will be closing down sooner than later, but Israel has a right to defend itself when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory.” Biden doesn’t say that he’ll order Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – one of the most heinous leaders on the world stage today – to stop these war crimes immediately. Instead, he’s talking about the rockets being fired by Hamas. In reality, Israel’s Iron Dome shield has stopped most of the rockets. — US Cruelty on Full Display as Israel Terrorizes Palestinians
Our tax money is not just subsidizing Israeli military aid. It subsidizes private provocateurs, settlement lobbies and multinational corporations sowing destruction in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It is time we start recognizing tax breaks as public funds worthy of public debate and discretion. Reforming the United States’s antidemocratic finance system and holding our citizens and corporations accountable for what they do with federal and state subsidies is critical not only to ending apartheid in Israel/Palestine, but also to democratizing a tax system that’s fundamentally unjust. — The Entire US Tax Code Is Implicated in the Forced Displacement of Palestinians
Videos 0f the Day:
United States:
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through. their ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
United States/Israel Genocide Continues!:
The forced removal of Palestinian residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem and the escalation of attacks by colonial settlers and Israeli forces is nothing short of ethnic cleansing. It is reminiscent of the Nakba when Zionists took half of Palestine for a Jewish state. At that time, they ravaged Palestinian towns, massacred, terrorized and forced much of the Palestinian population to flee into neighboring counties. Today, the Israeli government is telling the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah that they must leave their generational homes so that Jewish settlers can take them. At the same time, they have attacked Muslim worshipers right inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest places in all of Islam, on one of it’s holiest days. Israel has also increased bombing attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, which has been called the “world’s largest open-air prison” because Israel prevents people from leaving or coming to Gaza. This means the people cannot escape bombs, drones and rockets from Israel. This is nothing short of a war crime. Much of the world is condemning these attacks. These condemnations are coming even from countries and people who have been reluctant to condemn Israel in the past. But where is the condemnation from the United States? US news media and politicians all use the same lying words. They say the Israeli attacks are in “retaliation” for Palestinian attacks. This is not true. There is a conscious policy by the Israeli government to take Palestinian land, homes, destroy their culture and religion. This is a genocidal policy that the US supports and encourages In recent years, in violation of international protocol, the US has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved its embassy to Occupied East Jerusalem. They have given Israel the green light to further annex Palestinian land and continue to send military and economic aid to Israel. Although some of this was done under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has not reversed any of it. Israel is the greatest supporter of US imperialism’s agenda in the region and has bombed and attack Iran, Syria and other countries in the furtherance of that agenda. Therefore, we in the United States have a special obligation to defend the Palestinian people against these attacks. As these words are being written, Gaza is being bombed (see video below).We must be out in the streets in support of the Palestinian people. Demonstrations are being organized throughout the US and the rest of the world. Join them or organize one in your area. (click here for a calendar of actions from Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network)
Free Palestine! No US aid to Israel! Stop to the Annexation of Palestinian land! Stop Stealing Palestinian Homes! Stop the Bombing!
How the United States Helps To Kill Palestinians The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But U.S. media and politicians betray their own lack of neutrality by blaming Palestinians for nearly all the violence and framing flagrantly disproportionate, indiscriminate and therefore illegal Israeli attacks as a justifiable response to Palestinian actions. The classic formulation from U.S. officials and commentators is that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” never “Palestinians have the right to defend themselves,” even as the Israelis massacre hundreds of Palestinian civilians, destroy thousands of Palestinian homes and seize ever more Palestinian land. By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
Tlaib Confronts Biden Over ‘Unconditional Support’ for Israel Amid Gaza Atrocities “The U.S. cannot continue to give the right-wing Netanyahu government billions each year to commit crimes against Palestinians.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first woman of Palestinian descent to serve in Congress, directly confronted President Joe Biden on Tuesday over his unwavering support for a right-wing Israeli government that continues to massacre civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip—in some cases using U.S.-made bombs and aircraft. By Jake Johnson
The Entire US Tax Code Is Implicated in the Forced Displacement of Palestinians Israeli settlements are supported by millions in U.S. tax-exempt donations funneled through corporations and nonprofits. Like many, I have watched with horror as cynical state actors and the legacy of Palestinian dispossession and settler colonialism have fueled the latest conflagration across Israel/Palestine. Underwriting the cheap political calculus of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political cronies is a network of U.S. financial support. Indeed, U.S. military aid and perverse corporate incentives underlie the U.S.-Israeli arms trade. A few courageous politicians are beginning to forge new conversations on sanctions and conditioning U.S. aid. However, absent from these conversations has been the messier, but no less critical, U.S. financial vehicles that fuel Israeli state violence. Corporate welfare and tax subsidies are also taxpayer monies that come at a cost to local communities. By Talya Wintman
Cyber Ninjas and Voting Pandas? The skullduggery doesn’t take a break! Just when you think the world of electioneering couldn’t get more bizarre, armies of Cyber Ninjas and mythical Voting Pandas come to the fore to remind us that they can. The election may be done and dusted, but Jim Crow doesn’t sleep. The skullduggery doesn’t take a break. In the U.S., there’s currently well over 300 bills winding their way through the legislatures of more than 40 states, all with one main aim: to take away people’s right to vote. Georgia served as a laboratory of horrible for much of this legislation. The vote-stealing techniques pioneered there are now in the process of being implemented in numerous other states. Even the Brits are getting in on the act, with the Conservative government announcing plans to implement voter ID, ostensibly to stop a crime wave of voter fraud that in reality doesn’t exist. By Greg Palast and Rick Smith
US Cruelty on Full Display as Israel Terrorizes Palestinians Every few years, the caged and helpless Palestinians reach the limits of their endurance suffering Israeli atrocities. They fight back and sustain more deaths, devastation, and deprivation. The United States, which never tires of preaching “human rights” “democracy” and other such noble values act as if the Israelis have cut off the US president’s tongue. Metaphorically, this is true when looking at the power the Israel Lobby (1) exerts over the corrupt congresspersons. The US presidents’ voice returns when the Israelis have carried out their agenda. Even if they open their mouths in between, most of the time it is to support the Israeli hideousness. By B. R. Gowani
The Judicial System in the Service of Chevrom: Steven Donziger Describes Contempt Case as a “Charade” As Trial Comes to a Close The environmental lawyer who sued Chevron over environmental pollution faces up to six months in prison. AFTER FIVE DAYS in court and 650 days on house arrest, Steven Donziger, the environmental attorney who helped win a multibillion-dollar judgment against Chevron over contamination from oil drilling in Ecuador, chose not to testify in his own defense in the final day of a trial over contempt of court charges. “My lawyers said you’d be crazy to testify, so we decided to cut the case short,” Donziger told The Intercept. “No need to continue to legitimize what’s essentially a charade.” As the Intercept previously reported, Donziger was charged with contempt of court for refusing to hand over his computer, cellphone, and other electronic devices in August 2019 and has since been on house arrest in his Upper West Side apartment in New York City. Although no attorney without a criminal record in the federal court system has ever before been detained pretrial for a misdemeanor offense, Donziger has been confined to his home for 21 months for the misdemeanor charge. If convicted, he faces six months in prison. By Sharon Lerner
Environment:
Catastrophic Juvenile Fish Kill Unfolds on the Klamath River Today (May 13), the Yurok Tribe reported that a widespread and catastrophic juvenile fish kill is taking place on the Klamath River, a day after the US Bureau of Reclamation announced that it would not release water to prevent a juvenile salmon kill on the river, as requested by the Tribe, and would not open the Klamath Project’s “A Canal” that supplies irrigation water to Klamath Basin growers. “While historic drought is the primary cause of the lack of water, previous BOR water allocation decisions led to the widespread fish kill, which could have been prevented with a flow increase,” according to the Yurok Tribe, the largest Tribe in California with more than 6,300 members, in a news release. By Dan Bacher
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
There are Reasons to Worry About US Inflation The jump in US annual consumer price inflation to 4.2 per cent reported last week was a shock. But was it a good reason to panic? Not obviously, since special factors can explain it. It was ever thus: when inflation starts to rise, special factors can always explain it. But in truth the big reasons for concern are not what is happening right now, but rather the political forces at work. Naturally, economic forces shape those political choices. And these forces are currently rather confusing. The unexpectedly big jump in consumer prices followed on an unexpectedly weak employment report: last month, the US added just 266,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate edged up to 6.1 per cent. The obvious explanation is that this is a recovery from an unprecedented recession, driven not by tightening demand but by shutdown of supply.By Martin Wolf
FRED: Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average (2021Q1)
Montag Didn’t Create the “Toxic Environment” at Bank of America Merrill Lynch; He Simply Perpetuated It This past Sunday’s New York print edition of the New York Times carried an in-depth article by Kate Kelly on the “toxic environment” at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, pointing the finger at Thomas Montag for creating it. Kelly is a good investigative reporter and deserves praise for outing this current conduct at the firm. But Montag, the President of Global Banking and Markets, has only been with Bank of America Merrill Lynch since August of 2008 – a period of less than 13 years. The toxic environment at Merrill Lynch dates back half a century. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Unity at Last: The Palestinian People Have Risen From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a ‘conflict’. Neither is it a ‘dispute’ nor ‘sectarian violence’ nor even a war in the traditional sense. It is not a conflict, because Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinian people are an occupied nation. It is not a dispute, because freedom, justice and human rights cannot be treated as if a mere political disagreement. The Palestinian people’s inalienable rights are enshrined in international and humanitarian law and the illegality of Israeli violations of human rights in Palestine is recognized by the United Nations itself. By Ramzy Baroud
Chile: Constituent Convention Election Results – A blow to the Regime Parties The results of the elections to the Constituent Convention in Chile over the weekend represent a political earthquake, showing a strong rejection of all established parties, which can be understood as the (distorted) political expression of the 2019 insurrection. The results of the elections to the Constituent Convention in Chile over the weekend represent a political earthquake, showing a strong rejection of all established parties, which can be understood as the (distorted) political expression of the 2019 insurrection. The results highlight at least three important things. First, the defeat of the right wing, which elected 37 Convention members, with 20 percent of the vote. With this, they do not reach the veto power that they aimed to achieve, for which they would have required one-third in the Convention, where all decisions have to be reached by a two-thirds majority. Second, there was a strong showing of independents, who won 48 seats, which corresponds to 31 percent of the total of 155 conventional deputies.
Education, Health, Science, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who pass universal healthcare for themselves, but cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity,2. Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel! For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel! Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!
Free Palestine! Stop the Bombing!
